Thirty years or so ago, Annabel Haredale had been a fine distinguished-looking girl, popular in the fast and reckless set which frequented the family place, Haredale, in the last days of her father's life. Lord Haredale and his sons were racing men, and not at all particular as to which of their acquaintances they introduced to the family circle. All the men Annabel knew were fast and dissipated, and all the ladies of her set tolerated, and even liked, fastness and dissipation. She had very little education, and all her religion consisted of an occasional attendance at Haredale church in a gallery with arm-chairs and a fire; where she and her visitors laughed and talked at intervals, and quizzed the natives. She was, however, a kind and warm-hearted girl, affectionate to her unworthy relatives, and she did her best, according to her lights, to keep matters straight at Haredale, and to preserve her own self-respect. She had many admirers, but no chance of marriage offered itself which she felt herself able to accept. The family circumstances did not improve when the old Lord Haredale died. His eldest son was equally deep in debt, and had less strength of character and constitution to carry off his vices. Annabel withdrew herself and her fortune, and, freed from the family surroundings, she came across people of a different stamp; another education began for her, she fell under religious influences, made good friends, and settled down happily into a pleasant and useful life at Silverfold, a pretty village not far from London. She did what she could to keep up a kindly intercourse with her brother, and made much of his son and daughter, being indeed very fond of the somewhat unpromising boy whom she would fain have regarded as the hope of the family, and, when his mother died, she did all she could to show him kindness. Lord Haredale, however, married again almost immediately, a young beauty, who proved very uncongenial to her husband's sister. When four little girls were added to the family, Miss Haredale had not much difficulty in getting the eldest put into her hands for education, and since then she had given Amethyst every advantage that she had missed herself.